The RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology is pleased to welcome Minoru Takasato as Team Leader of the new Laboratory for Human Organogenesis, launched on August 1. Dr. Takasato is well recognized for his work on generating kidney organoids from human pluripotent stem cells in vitro. He will continue his research on kidney organoids at the CDB to improve and refine his protocol for establishing kidney organoids in an in vitro system, with the aim to gain a more comprehensive understanding of mechanisms involved in kidney development as well as to generate three-dimensional functional kidneys that can potentially be used for clinical purposes.

Dr. Takasato joins the CDB from his previous post as Senior Research Officer at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital, in Melbourne, Australia.